1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to technology for providing content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet has become very popular. Many people and businesses use the Internet to access data, applications, entertainment, productivity tools, and so on. However, web pages and web applications are built around the page metaphor, which constrains application interaction. That is, typical web pages are displayed a page at a time and lack the fluid feel and features of other user interfaces. Many feel that this limitation is due to the shortcomings of HTML, while others lay blame on the limitations of browsers.
Some previous attempts to provide dynamic user interactions include downloading source code directly to the client. For example, Javascript code is often downloaded directly to the browser. The browser then interprets the code directly. This approach is limited because Javascript is typically not portable (different browsers offer differing support for the language) and Javascript severely limits the interactions that can be specified by the programmer.
Another attempted solution involves the downloading of statically pre-compiled bytecode. For example, Java applets can be downloaded to a browser when a user accesses a web page. The Java source code for the applet is fixed, written in advance, and pre-compiled into an applet. When the user accesses the page, the applet is downloaded into the browser and the bytecode is interpreted (or compiled into machine code by a JIT compiler). One of several shortcomings of this approach is that Java is not sufficiently prevalent on all types of clients. That is, not all clients have the ability to interpret (or JIT compile) Java bytecode. Another shortcoming is that applets can be quite large to download and slow to run. Furthermore, creating Java applets is a complicated processes. Many web designers are not able or do not have the resources to take advantage of Java applets. Finally, because the code is written and compiled in advance, it is not dynamic.
Another attempt to provide more complex user interactions includes developing a complete standalone (non-browser based) application. The source code for this application is compiled statically. The end-user must specifically request that the binary object code for the program be downloaded over the network or he/she must install it from some other external source. This approach is typically even more expensive then Java applets and suffers even worse deployment issues.
Another solution includes dynamically generated HTML, which involves dynamically creating HTML source code in response to a request for content. The dynamically created source code is then transmitted from the server to the client browser, where it is used to provide content to the user. Although the code is generated dynamically, the code is still HTML which limits, as described above, the features of the user interface.
Thus, there are no complete solutions today that provide complex, feature rich dynamic interactions without the shortcomings of the prior art.